Marauding wild pigs have wreaked havoc on a key neighborhood of New Zealand's capital, murdering baby goats at an urban farm, frightening dogs, and invading people's gardens.
The proprietors of a goat milk farm in the hills of Brooklyn, 10 minutes from Wellington's center, have lost roughly 60 young goats to pigs in the last few months.
Often, all that is left of them are gnawed bone bits and hoof or skull shards.
feral pigs torment residents
GUILLAUME SOUVANT/AFP via Getty Images
"It's a murder scene," claimed Naomi Steenkamp, co-owner of the property.
If they locate something they enjoy eating and it is a free feed - like a newborn baby - they will return, as per the New York Post.
The feral pig population in the Brooklyn neighborhood, which backs up to farmland and regenerating bush with walking trails, has been growing and causing concerns for residents, according to Wellington City Council.
The destructive creatures, which are descended from pigs carried over on colonial ships in the 18th century, are now established throughout roughly one-third of the island nation.
Apart from upsetting homeowners and terrifying pets, wild animals are interfering with the council's efforts to rejuvenate the bush surrounding Brooklyn and reinvigorate local bird life.
While the city hired a hunter to remove pests in the region on an annual basis, the council's authority does not extend to private land.
It is difficult to monitor what happens on private land without permission from the owner, according to Wellington City Council spokesperson Richard Maclean.
He did, however, advised citizens against taking matters into their own hands.
The feral pig population in New Zealand is derived from pigs transported out aboard colonial ships in the late 1700s, as per The Guardian.
They have spread throughout nearly one-third of the country and are known to harm natural ecosystems and meadows, kill young animals such as lambs, and spread bovine TB.
Frans Steenkamp, Steenkamp's husband, shot and killed a boar that burst past their fence and reached within 20 meters of their house last month.
The 120kg beast was the largest they'd seen in their five years of husbandry.
"You wonder if it's a ticking time bomb," she said, adding that when she uploaded a photo of the dead pig on social media, many other residents contacted her with their own stories.
She described how many people came out of the woodwork to tell they had pigs in their garden, and hogs bailing up their pets. One of them was feeding them and thinking it was pretty cool until it charged at him.
Aside from the desire to protect her livelihood, Steenkamp wishes to see the pigs disappear so that the native bush can regenerate.
The number of pigs running free in the region was impossible to quantify, but "there has certainly been an increase," said Richard Maclean, the council's spokeswoman.
Given that we're already hearing complaints about pigs emerging in backyards, he believed that the population must be expanding.
People think of Wellington as this pure location where you couldn't possibly have pigs or goats, but the wild animals were impeding the council's efforts to regenerate native vegetation and restore bird life, according to Maclean.
Feral pigs came to Australia with the First Fleet and now cover around 40% of the country.
They cause agricultural damage by preying on newborn lambs, lowering crop yields, damaging fences, and water sources, and competing for feed with stock by consuming or damaging pasture, as per Pest Smart.
They are also seen as a huge hazard to stock as a possible carrier of exotic illnesses, with the greatest worry being their position as a reservoir for African Swine Fever and Foot-and-Mouth Disease if they are ever established in Australia or New Zealand.
Most states and territories have explicit statutory obligations in place to guarantee that feral pigs are properly controlled.
The land owner/manager, whether a park ranger, a private landholder, or an indigenous group, is responsible for reducing feral pig numbers in their domain.
In late 2019, a National Feral Pig Management Coordinator was appointed, with a National Feral Pig Action Plan to be released in 2021.
According to research, reducing a feral pig population by 70% or more can inhibit its growth potential.
A variety of feral pig management methods are available in Australia.
A mix of strategies is typically required since no one strategy will entirely eliminate feral pigs from a particular region.
